


The Communications Expert

by teyla



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Attempted Adultery, Bad Sex, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, Lack of Communication, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 21:30:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11745573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla
Summary: Malcolm asks for relationship advice, and Nicola gets her own back (a bit, anyway).





	The Communications Expert

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt I got over on Tumblr: "Malcolm/Anyone, angsty, only once, and oral if there is sexy times". It's set at some point in season 3.
> 
> As much as the tags make it sound like a downer, I promise there's at least a hopeful ending. Beta'ed by the long-suffering, ever-available Neery—thanks so much!

Malcolm’s getting his cock sucked, and he’s pissed as fuck.

That’s got to be why it’s not working for him. It’s not Nicola’s fault; she’s doing fine. He’s still nowhere near hard enough to be of any use.

It’s what they say, right? It doesn’t work when you’re pissed. 

It also supposedly doesn’t work when your partner doesn’t match your sexual orientation, but Malcolm’s calling bullshit on that. Straight men get their self-conscious rocks off over queer things all the time. Why shouldn’t it work the other way around?

Fact is, though, it’s not working. Nicola’s efforts are becoming noticeably laboured, and there’s a familiar tar pit of depression yawning open in his gut. He reaches down, gets his fingers tangled in thick hair as he nudges her back. 

“’s all right.” He feels dazed more than drunk, like someone hit him over the head with a heavy object. The Complete Works of Walt Whitman, maybe. “Never mind.”

“Never _mind_?” Nicola pulls back. “I’m not doing this out of the—the goodness of my fucking heart, Malcolm. I was going to get something in return, right?”

Malcolm likes drunk Nicola. Drunk Nicola skips right over all of her female politeness training and releases the beast of cold pragmatism that this woman actually is. That said, right now his skin’s feeling a bit thin.

“ _I’m_ not getting anything out of this, so why the fuck should you?” He pokes his toes into her side, none-too-gently, makes her move aside; then fishes over the side of the bed for his pants. “Why the fuck are you even doing this? You’re fucking married.”

“Oh, like married people don’t stray.” She gets up, stands next to the bed and yanks her prim-and-proper pencil skirt in place. “It’s the definition of the fucking word, Malcolm. It’s not straying for you, is it? For you it’s just a one-night-stand, just another day at the fucking office.”

“Fuck off. That’s not true.” Yep, he’s feeling really fucking thin-skinned. The insinuation is just so fucking _unfair_. He gets up, snags his trousers off the floor, and has to put a hand against the wall to keep his balance. “If I slept with everyone who’d spread their legs for me, I’d never get a fucking night off.”

“Oh, because you’re _so_ great, aren’t you? The great Malcolm Tucker, any woman would just _die_ to have your frankly mediocre pencil cock rammed all the way into her ovaries.” She widens her eyes. “It’s like a fucking medieval lance! I’m sure you and your testosterone think that’s great, but any woman with half a brain wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.”

The buttons on his shirt are really fucking difficult. On the upside, they’re a good reason not to look at Nicola. “So you’re telling me you’re making worse choices than a lobotomy victim? That’s not fucking _news_ , is it?”

“Oh, _please_.” Her tone is really fucking vicious. Perhaps sober Nicola is better than drunk Nicola, after all. “You want to know why I’m here? I’ll tell you why I’m here.” She steps up, more or less fully dressed now, and pokes a finger into his chest. “It’s because of my _stupid_ husband. It’s all about him, Malcolm, but you can’t even get it up long enough to give him something to be jealous about!”

The tar pit in his stomach is on its way to engulf most of his intestines. It’s like struggling against the gravity pull of a fucking black hole. “Fuck off, Nicola.” He goes over to the door, pulls it open. “Get out of my house.”

“Like fuck.” She plonks herself down on his bed. “I have to be in the office at eight. You offered me your sofa, remember? I’m still taking you up on that.”

He did offer her the sofa, because it was late, and he was drunker than he’d meant to get and dreading going home to a giant house full of stale air and staler memories. He should’ve never stayed at that function for longer than an hour or two, but it was a DoSAC event going well for a change. They were all so _happy_. Sometimes it’s nice being around optimistic people, even when you know they’re fucking misguided.

But that’s the thing about having a good time. Eventually, it stops, and then you’re left feeling like those baby shoes from the fucking Hemingway story. For that story alone, the man deserved to die like he did.

“All right, fine. The sofa is downstairs.” He gestures at the door. Take a fucking hint.

She doesn’t move. She doesn’t look like she’s going to take a hint. “Why are _you_ doing this?”

“What?”

She leans back, narrows her eyes. “Why are you _doing_ this? You weren’t enjoying it; don’t think I couldn’t tell.”

“Oh for—” Jesus. “Who are you, my therapist? Go sleep on the fucking sofa, or I’ll call the police and have them arrest you for trespassing.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“ _What_?”

“You’re pining for someone.” She gets up, and there’s a fucking _glint_ in her eyes, excitement over having figured something out. “I’m well-versed in pining, you know? I have two teenage daughters. I have a fucking husband who has me pining daily for the man I _thought_ I married. Who are you pining for, Malcolm?”

“Fuck off.” This is unacceptable. Sober Nicola would never do this, would never be confident enough to trust her instincts and put her finger right on the spot. “I mean it, Nicola. This conversation is over.”

“What, or I might catch you having a human emotion? That’d be really awkward.”

He feels like one of those sad sacks they put in Health & Safety videos; When Bad Things Happen to Good People. How did he end up in this conversation? “What the fuck do you want?”

She looks a bit like she doesn’t know herself. “I don’t want to sleep on the sofa. I want to know why this didn’t _work_ for you,” and she stabs her finger into his chest. “I’ll have you know that I give really good fucking blowjobs. I’ve only ever had good feedback.”

Jesus. “This is a pride thing?” He can’t believe this. “You’re offended ‘cos I didn’t appreciate your magic fucking blowjob skills?”

“I—no! Yes. A little, perhaps?” Her eyebrows pull together. “Were you just not into it? _You_ invited me to come home with you.”

He did. He fucking did, and he’s going to regret it for the rest of his life. “I—Jesus.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Nicola, all right? Mixed messages, I get it. I’m sorry. Let me make the message really fucking clear: I don’t want to continue this in any fucking way. All right? I’d rather you and I were in fucking Beijing and London, respectively, right now, but I’ll make do with the bedroom and the sofa. _Downstairs_.”

Her face falls, and it makes her look as drunk as she is, eyes dull and half-lidded, lips slightly parted and pulled down on the corners. “Okay. _Okay_ , Malcolm.” She pushes past him, and Jesus, there’s a wet glint in her eyes. “Thanks for fucking clarifying.”

She storms off, and he lets her. He has no words of comfort even for himself.

\------

With some effort, he manages to claw his way into alcoholic unconsciousness, but it’s barely two hours before he’s awake again. The bright light of the alarm clock slices through his brain, his tongue feels like dead snake skin, and his stomach is protesting every single drop of whisky he subjected it to.

He didn’t use to be such a lightweight. Fucking old age, and having a job that leaves no time for alcoholism.

He picks his way out of bed, having to stop occasionally to let his stomach settle, and is half-way down the stairs before he remembers that he’s not alone in the house.

Fuck. Well, perhaps she’s asleep.

She’s not.

She looks as bad as he feels; dishevelled, sweaty, and tired. Her bra is slung over the sofa’s armrest. She’s wrapped in a blanket and staring at her phone, the light of the display the only thing illuminating her face.

“That’ll ruin your eyes.”

If he was expecting to startle her, he’s disappointed. She must’ve heard him come down the stairs. “I couldn’t figure out which one of those is the light switch.”

She points at the wall next to the door, where there’s an admittedly wide variation of switches—vent, hallway lighting, front living room lighting, back living room lighting, kitchen lighting, terrace blinds. He flicks the one that turns on the small reading lamp next to the sofa. “What’re you doing?”

“Reviewing the speech I gave tonight.”

He heads into the kitchen, gets himself a glass of water. After a moment’s consideration, he gets one for Nicola as well.

“You know you’re too old to be pulling all-nighters like this.” He sits down in an armchair, gives up on the idea of getting any more sleep tonight. If even alcohol won’t kill his insomnia, nothing will.

Nicola snorts. “You’re up, aren’t you? You’re older than I am.”

“You don’t know this about me, but I don’t generally sleep at all.”

“Right, of course.” She switches the phone off, puts it aside. They stare at each other, silence heavy and awkward; then they both start talking at once.

“Look, Malcolm, I’m sorry—”

“I’m fucking sorry for—”

They break off, discomfited, until Nicola laughs. “Jesus. I just—none of this was a good idea. Right?”

Malcolm shakes his head. “Not so much, no.”

“Okay. So—mutual apology mutually accepted? And we pretend this never happened.”

That would be the smart thing to do. He looks at Nicola sat on his sofa way too early in the fucking morning, braless and dishevelled and showing an outline of nipple under her shirt. It does nothing for him. It’s been such a fucking long time, and he still has to double-check every ten years or so if he didn’t perhaps turn straight over night.

It’s stupid. Any queer theorist would have a field day.

“Malcolm?”

“Do you do this a lot? Sleep around?” She sucks in a breath, prepared to be outraged, and he waves her off. “Asking purely for professional fucking reasons. I’m the one who’d have to deal with any potential fall-out, remember?”

“I don’t ‘do this a lot’, no.” He waits, and she narrows her eyes. “He did it first, all right? It’s payback. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t?”

“No, Malcolm, you wouldn’t. I will concede to your experience in anything regarding politics, or newspapers, or—spinning, or what have you. But when it comes to managing the difficulties of a long-term relationship, I _think_ I’ve got an edge on you.”

“What, you think my relationships haven’t been fucking difficult?”

He shouldn’t have said that. Nicola’s not like most people; Nicola actually _listens_. Instead of a blanket dismissal, he gets a surprised blink. “What relationships?” She frowns. “ _Have_ you been married?”

“No.” Fuck. Why did he say that?

“All right.” She’s picked up a scent now. “What relationships, then?”

He sits there, and he stares at her, the last of the alcohol in his system dulling things just enough to take the edge off. His head’s clear enough so he knows that if he’d wanted to put an end to this conversation, all he’d’ve had to do was agree to never talk about this again. He didn’t do that, did he?

“I was—” He frowns, breaks off. Tries again. “Until recently, I was in a, you know.” He waves a hand. “Long-term fucking relationship, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“Until recently.” She eyes him. He can tell that she’s going through countless scenarios in her head. “How recently?”

“A year.” He shrugs. “Bit more than that. Sixteen months, just about.”

“You were dating for sixteen months, or you broke up sixteen months ago?”

“The latter.”

She starts to look a bit confused. “That’s not that recent, Malcolm.”

“All right, well, fuck you.” He doesn’t even know why he’s telling her. Perhaps it’s because there is a certain intimacy to having had someone’s mouth on your cock. Perhaps it’s because he wants to tell _someone_ , has been wanting to for years. “It’s considerably shorter than the relationship was, so I consider it fucking recent.”

“How long was the relationship?”

The sad thing is, he doesn’t even know, not precisely. It’s not like they had a wedding anniversary or anything like that. “Ten years, or thereabouts. Thirteen.”

“You—” Her face goes through an assortment of expressions; eventually settles on incredulous. “You’re joking, right? You’re playing some sort of weird, fucked-up mind game with me, because you can’t bear my knowing more about something than you. Right?”

Oh, for Christ’s sake. “I’m not that fucking desperate.”

“You’re telling me you were in a committed, long-term relationship since—since the mid-flipping-nineties? And nobody knew?” Her kaleidoscope of expressions edges into compassion. “Why didn’t anyone know, Malcolm?”

“It’s nobody’s fucking business, all right?” Come on, Nicola. Put two and two together; it’s not that hard.

She still looks stumped, opens her mouth, closes it. Frowns. Then slowly, _slowly_ , the confusion on her face gives way to realisation. “You—oh, shit. _Malcolm_.”

He’s not going to help her out. He started this, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to make it easy on her.

“You _couldn’t_ tell, right? As in, if you’d told, you’d’ve ended your career.” She flaps her hands, flustered. “Right? Was that it?”

It’s like fucking Harry Potter wizards shitting their pants at Voldemort’s name, like she’d invoke some sort of unholy evil by just asking him straight-up if he was fucking a bloke. It’s adding to the nausea that’s churning his guts.

He looks down at his hands. He sort of wishes he could turn back time, stop his past self from inviting Nicola home with him. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’s done now.”

“What happened?”

Her tone makes him glance up. It’s almost as if despite this new revelation, she’s still on board with the idea that this was a _relationship_. That it meant something, that it hurt when it ended.

Shit. He’s never admitted that, not even to himself. It fucking _hurt like hell_ ; it still does. He clenches his jaw, looks off to the side. “Doesn’t—” He clears his throat. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Clearly.”

It’s dry, pragmatic, and of course she’s _right_. Stonewalling her now is fucking stupid. He runs a hand over his face. “Remember Jamie?”

“MacDonald?” He doesn’t give confirmation, but it’s not needed. “Of course I remember him. He moved back to Glasgow, didn’t he?”

Malcolm nods. “He’s freelancing. Mostly writes for the _Herald_.”

There’s nothing for a while, until Nicola gives another nudge. “Were you and him—”

“We fell out,” he interrupts her, stalling that particular question before she can ask it. “Over the fucking—” Deep breath. “The fucking leadership change. We make it through everything, right, from the Terrorist Act to the Hutton Inquiry, and then we fall out over _that_.” It’s so fucking stupid. It’s still so fucking _stupid_ , and he still doesn’t know what he would’ve had to have done differently.

“He didn’t support Tom, did he? I remember that. He downright hated the guy.”

“He’s a fucking idealist.” Malcolm scrubs his palms over his face, tries to get rid of the prickling underneath his eyelids. “Fucking stupid Catholic fucking idealist, and he never—” Another deep breath. “I should’ve never dragged him into politics. He’s a good journalist, but he’s not—he’s not as morally fucking flexible as you need to be to do this fucking job, right? Probably makes him a better person than all of us put together.”

She doesn’t say anything, and he still can’t fucking look at her. He knows he’ll regret telling her all of this when the sun comes up. He’s already sort of regretting it. But it’s there, in his head, every fucking minute of every fucking day, and he needs to tell someone. He needs to _ask_ someone what the fuck he’s supposed to do.

Shit.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do.” It’s shaky, enough so that there’s no way Nicola’s not picking up on it. “We had that stupid fucking argument, and I fired him, and he left. And he’s just—we haven’t spoken since.”

“Why not?”

That makes him look at her, irritation drawing his eyebrows together. “What do you mean, why not? In case it wasn’t clear, we didn’t part on good terms.”

“Okay, but you miss him, right?”

She sounds so fucking _pragmatic_ about it. Fuck her. “Doesn’t _matter_ if I do or not, does it?”

She’s watching him, and he has a feeling that she’s making the same face she makes when she’s listening to her teenage daughters cry about their fucking boyfriends. That’s a thought that’ll fuel the fires of his self-hatred for a while. “That’s up to you.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to fucking mean.”

“It means it’s up to you whether it matters or not,” and now she’s seguing from motherly compassion to exasperation. “If it was a stupid argument, if you don’t care anymore, why aren’t you calling him and telling him as much?”

He opens his mouth to dismiss the idea as ludicrous, but the words get stuck in his throat. Why _isn’t_ he calling Jamie and telling him that it doesn’t matter, that he’s sorry, and that he misses him? Because it’s complicated, too fucking complicated to be fixed by a phone call—except perhaps it’s not. Thinking about it, saying sorry might actually _work_. Jamie’s stubborn, but Jamie’s also got the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to holding grudges.

There’s a flash of light, and he blinks, startled. The glare recedes to reveal Nicola swiping at her phone. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t realise I had the flash on.”

“What the _fuck_ are you taking pictures of?”

She looks up, a tiny smirk tugging on the corners of her mouth. “You, struck speechless. I’m going to look at it every time you make me feel like an idiot. I expect I’m going to get quite a bit of mileage out of it.”

He can’t fucking believe this. “You fucking—delete that photo.”

She pockets the phone, shakes her head. “No way.”

“Fucking delete it or I’ll tell your husband that you’re _cheating_ on him.”

She snorts. “No, you won’t.”

“You—” _Fuck_. This is why telling anyone anything is always a bad idea. “Fine. Fuck. I don’t even fucking care.”

She smiles. “Are you going to call Jamie?”

“That’s none of your fucking business.”

“All right. But will you?”

Shit. She sounds fucking _genuine_ , like she’s asking because she actually fucking cares. He exhales, shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. Stop fucking asking.”

“Okay.” She suppresses a yawn, glances at her phone. “I have exactly two hours left before I need to be in the office. How do you feel about breakfast?”

“I hate fucking breakfast.”

She shrugs, gets to her feet and grabs her bra. “All right. Well, I’m going to find a Costa, or something. Can I use your shower?”

He waves a hand at the stairs, doesn’t bother articulating his agreement. She stops as she’s passing by his chair, eyes him. Her expression gives him a bad feeling that he knows what’s coming next. “So,” she says, and she sounds _so_ fucking sure of herself. “It wasn’t me, then, earlier. It was that you’re—”

“Stop.” He holds up a hand. “Never fucking say it.”

“All right.” She shuffles her feet. “Sorry.”

“Fuck off already.”

“Okay.”

She leaves, finally. A few minutes later he can hear the shower turn on in the upstairs bathroom. The sound invokes memories of sharing the house with someone, of sharing his _life_ with someone. Human brains are fucking stupid, triggering memories via sensory input. Who needs that sort of thing?

“Fuck.” He digs his phone from his pocket, scrolls down to a number he hasn’t dialled in over a year, and takes the phone out back to avoid prying ears.

The ringing on the other end is shrill and uncomfortable, until it’s cut off by a familiar, sleep-slurry voice. “Yes. What?”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.

“Hey, Jamie,” he says. “It’s Malcolm.”


End file.
